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After: Prove It


Ashley

"Mind. Blown." I said.

We were sitting in a corner booth at IHOP. Aside from us, the restaurant was almost empty, aside from a guy on the end of the bar eating eggs, and the waitresses, who wandered around with sweepers and cloths to wipe the tables. There was a TV somewhere was playing an old hockey game between the Boston Bruins and the Los Angeles Kings, we couldn't see it but we could hear the commentary.

"There's nothing like IHOP in the middle of the night," Nick said, "It's like a delicacy."

I laughed and looked down at the menu.

He was still staring at me, I could feel it. I wanted him to look away. His eyes were so intense, and so... It was like gravity, pulling my heart. I looked up at him.

"Do you remember last time we were here?" he asked.

I nodded. Too well. "After seeing my father," I replied.

Nick nodded. "Do you remember the talk we had?"

I nodded.

"I was trying so damn hard to tell you. But every time I tried it came out wrong and it just..." he laughed, smiling at the memory. His eyes glowed, those crinkles at the corner stretching further than I remembered them stretching. He was getting older, maturing around the edges. For a split second, I could picture him old, and in my mind we were sitting there in IHOP fifty years later and he was remembering this very night. For a moment, I saw my future. Except it wasn't my future. My future was Chris sitting across the booth.

Chris hates IHOP.

"Damn it Ashley," Nick laughed, "You know, I'm a fucking pop star and I stand on stages in front of sold out stadiums full of people and I talk about crazy personal stuff in interviews that are broadcast all over the world and I can't look you in the eyes and say three words without feeling like my entire insides are all froze up." He shook his head.

"Maybe you don't really mean them," I teased.

Nick shook his head, "I just mean them so much it's hard to make the words sound sincere enough when I say them."

He had such a way of saying things.

A waitress appeared at our booth and Nick turrned to her, breaking the gaze that we'd had going on. My heart was banging off my rib cage. It was crazy, it was insane. It was too perfect. This was everything I'd dreamed of since I was a kid. I felt hot and cold at the same time. I wanted to let myself have this so badly it hurt. But a nagging little voice inside me whispered he only wants you because he can't have you, and I thought of all those times girls said no to him at the bars all those years he'd been a player and I remembered how he'd doubled his efforts to get that girl to want him, even if when he'd initialized contact with them, he'd been reluctant because they weren't what he was really after.

I was now that girl. I was a game to him. I was a challenge.

"We'll have an order of the pancake puppies for the table... and... um... I'm gonna go with the avacado breakfast burrito," Nick ordered, "And coffee. Lots of coffee. Oh and juice, too. And also some bacon."

The waitress was scribbling furiously to keep up with his order.

"What do you want, Ashley?" he asked.

"Um... oatmeal," I said, reading off the menu because I'd lost all thought of what I'd been going to order, my mind was so wrapped up in Nick and these twelve hours and what they meant. "And egg whites. Scrambled. And um. Cranberry juice."

The waitress nodded and took the menus and walked away.

Nick raised an eyebrow, "Oatmeal?"

I shrugged.

He laughed.

"Nick," I said, my mouth moving before I could stop it, "Exactly what do you expect to happen because of this date?" He licked his lips, like he was preparing to say something. But I spoke again before he could, "Do you expect me to break up with Chris and run off with you?" He looked like he didn't know how to answer that. "Do you expect us to end up together? To sleep with me?"

"You think this is about sleeping with you?" he asked.

"I don't know what it 's about," I said.

"It's about me being in love with you," he replied. "And I thought about you giving me a chance to persuade you to... to love me back."

"I loved you back for years," I answered, "And you've never loved me until the moment that you think I stopped."

"No," Nick shook his head, "No, I always loved you, I just didn't understand that."

I was afraid to trust that he was telling the truth. Even now, a year later, I could see the look on his face when I'd found him in the corner by that damn flying pig statue on his birthday. "Nick, you've never loved anyone in your entire life."

"I've loved you for my entire life," he argued, "And I want to love you for the rest of it, too."

"You don't even believe in marriage," I argued back, "You don't even want to get married."

Nick's eyes were so damn blue, and so serious when he stared at me. "When it comes to you, I do."

I felt my insides quiver like they were made of jelly.

"Prove it," I said.




Nick

I swallowed.

Prove it? How was I supposed to prove it?

I thought of the ordained Elvis I'd been dreaming about in the lobby of the hotel.

"Vegas," I whispered.

"What?" Ashley had heard me just fine, but she looked afraid. Her eyes were wide.

"Let's go to Vegas," I said.

Ashley laughed, "We can't go to Vegas."

"Why not? We'll find an Elvis to marry us. I'll prove to you that I'm not afraid to get married to you. Right now. Tonight." I could feel my adrenaline starting to burst through my veins.

I may as well have shot her with a taser the way she looked. Disbelief etched her face.

But I think the important thing to note is that she didn't say no.

"We'll get in the car, and we'll drive all night," I said, repeating my fantasy from the hotel lobby. Ashley was staring at me, her mouth slightly ajar. "We'll run down the street and find the first chapel with an ordained Elvis and we'll do it. By morning, you'll be Ashley Carter."

We sat there, silence so thick it could be felt hung over us.

Ashley didn't move. I didn't dare to, either, afraid that she'd answer too quickly and say no.

I willed her with every ounce of me to say yes.

Please. Please. Please.

I love you, I begged her silently. I can't live without you. I only lived this long because of you.

And then the waitress was back with our plate of pancake puppies and a big smile on her face and she put the basket down on the table with a click that roused Ashley out of her meditative state.

"Would you all like powdered sugar on the pups?" the waitress asked, holding up the little silver can of powdered sugar.

"Yes," Ashley said.

But she wasn't looking at the waitress.

She was looking at me.